An Hourglass Of Ashes
by Disciple Of The Dragon Star
Summary: On her way home from work, Orihime encounters someone she had long buried, someone she had always thought she'd been too late to save. She is forced to confront memories of Hueco Mundo and her own guilt. Ulquihime, onesided Ichihime.


Thankfully, some of my spirit to write seems to have come back - perhaps my muse has decided to take pity on me. This will be a sort of Ulquihime story with onesided Ichihime. I've tried to make it canon as possible but if anyone has any suggestions please mention them in your review. Read and Review = bread and butter of fanfiction writers. Thank you to IchiRukiLover and the mysterious guest reviewer for reviewing my last story. Thanks to the guys who favourited and followed it as well.~ An Hourglass Of Ashes ~Inoue Orihime thinks that the bakery is the most wonderful place in the world.The smells! Ah, chocolate, honey, kiwi, nuts, warm, rich, savoury, sweet - they fill every pore of her body as she inhales, lifting her off her feet with a delicious whirl. She feels as though she is flying! Watch out world! Here comes Baker Hime, ready to save the innocent from bad guys, supervillains, tofu monsters, wild Pokémon -"Oi! inoue! Stand there daydreaming any longer and I'll start docking every second from your paycheck!"Orihime sighs gently and flips back her ponytail. She continues to count the bread into trays and sorts them. To pass the time she names the delicacies. Here is Ishida-kun - a tall, thin baguette, crispy on the outside but soft and warm on the inside. Oh, and Sado-kun! She plonks this large, dark rich loaf studded with almonds onto a tray then giggles as she moves another tray of ginger "Tatsuki" cookies to the bottom of a shelf, remembering how crunchy but sweet they are.The last tray gives her pause.It is filled with planks of strawberry shortbread, hot from the oven, tough-looking but melting irresistibly in one's mouth to flood the tongue with the bittersweet tang of fruit.Kurosaki-kun.She handles the thing carefully but smiles softly as she does so. He smiled in school today, a full smile after so many days of grim silence. He wasn't smiling at her but the memory is enough to make her blush - how he smiled and the sunlight hit his hair and turned it to a shade so bright that she was tempted to get a fire extinguisher to put it out.Orihime hums gently as this particular tray is placed to cool on a shelf apart from the others. The shortbread is a warm brown from the baking and it puts her in mind of Kurosaki-kun's eyes.Warm...brown...depthless like cozy fires under the chill winter of his scowl. She hugs herself even though the thougts are enough to warm her.Kurosaki...Ichigo. She wonders if she can be as bold as Kuchiki-san and the others to say his name. Her heart flutters.It is Kurosaki-kun (no - Ichigo, she corrects) who is on her mind as she packs bread into a plastic bag. Some for Sado-kun...some for herself...Kurosa - Ichigo is still on her mind as she bids a cheerful goodbye to her co-workers and walks into the evening.Walking along, she plans to have the beef nachos with chocolate orange and Tabasco sauce for dinner. Kurosa - Ichigo is still in her head.Ichi -She doesn't see the man until it is too late - they collide and with a startled cry she drops the bag and stumbles, bright hair flying. He grunts and lurches to a stop."Oh I'm so sorry!" Orihime cries miserably. "Here, let me help..."Under the steadily darkening sky, they pick up each others belongings as she mutters apologies. His face is hidden by a silken curtain of dark black bangs but she notices that the hand that picks up a burst packet of breadcrumbs is very pale.Orihime bows as he straightens."I am very sorry sir," she begins seriously, clutching at the bread bag. "Are you hurt?" Orihime finally raises her head to look at him.And everything else falls away.Those deep green eyes fringed by thick black lashes drown her thoughts, her very being and then her voice. Kurosaki-kun is dragged away too, snuffed out like a lit match falling into a still sea.Some small functioning part of her brain mutters impossible. It can't be him. He's not pale enough. There is no hole in his upper chest. No Arrancar mask.Then she looks back into his eyes and yes, Ulquiorra Cifer is there in those expressionless dark eyes. Suddenly she is a prisoner again in a bland white room and he is standing there, one hand on the hilt of his zanpakutou, the other in his pocket as he threatens her with force feeding and the wind howls around them both, struggling through the open window from the desert beyond.Her terrified reconstruction of Hueco Mundo is shattered when Ulquiorra - he cannot be anything else in her head - extends his hand with the burst and leaking packet of breadcrumbs held in it. The creamy white grains stick to his hand.A surge of bile rises in her mouth and she smells blood as though the déja vu is messing with her senses. The position is identical to the way he reached out for her after the battle on the rooftop dome in Hueco Mundo.Now he'll ask me, she thinks, now he'll ask me "Onna are you afraid of me?"Orihime certainly knows she must look terrified. Her eyes are wide circles, her mouth opened slightly like a fish. She is trembling with cold.Onna are you afraid of me?Yes I am afraidAfraidYes I was too lateInstead he says "I think I managed to pick up everything else. However this -" he indicates the packet in his hand "- is beyond repair."Grains trickling out of his hand and blowing away in a breeze that has picked up around them. Ulquiorra's eyes show no emotion, only the disinterested curiousity she knows so well.He waits.Inoue Orihime, the woman, fears that she will freeze again, that she will be too late that he will suddenly dissolve into a fine spray of breadcrumbs and blow away again out of reach -She does the only sensible thing left. She takes the packet and stuffs it into her bag quickly."A- arigatou," she manages to stammer.Ulquiorra nods."I apologise if I have hurt you woman."And just like he came he is gone, walking past her in long unhurried strides until he vanishes into the dark, black hair lifting in the wind, hands in the pockets of his white jeans.Inoue Orihime stands there for a long while before she finally trudges back to her house in silence. The wind howls in her ear, lifts her bright hair to the cold gleam of the stars above and fills the sudden vacuum in her normally expressive eyes.She eats her dinner in silence without tasting it. Each mouthful is a rote action, a pile of ashes.She forgets to call Tatsuki and doesn't hear the phone when it rings three times.When she gets into bed she lies there a long while and stares at the curve of the moon outside her window.Her dreams are troubled and restless.Under a sharply curved sickle moon she sits in the middle of a white desert and the wind moans sadly through her Arrancar dress like a lost ghost. Strange creatures prowl and cry but Orihime's attention is fixed on the ornate hourglass in her hands and the draining of the dark powder within. She waits until the top is almost empty then flips it over so that the majority of the powder trickles back to join the remnants in the near empty half. The person behind her - she is conscious of the pair of deep green eyes reflected in the curve of the hourglass - talks to her in the white-bland voice of the endless desert itself, tells her to stop, that it is beyond repair and then finally asks her if she is afraid.Over and over he repeats his litany and Orihime answers by turning over the hourglass again and again, trying to put back what is being lost. Doing what she was too late to do.Answering him.Reaching out and clasping.Bringing together.~ FIN ~Not too happy with the ending but please do read and review. 


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